A reconfigurable asymmetric 3-UPU parallel robot

Abstract

Parallel robots with three UPU legs have received a lot of attention due to the possibility of assembling these legs so that the robot performs either a pure translational or a pure rotational motion. Nevertheless, some arrangements, despite their theoretical interest, are of doubtful practical utility due to their sensitivity to errors and the presence in their workspaces of mixed-modes that involve both translations and rotations. The introduction of some sort of asymmetry has been revealed of relevance to come up with more robust designs. In this context, we present an asymmetric 3-P robot, that can be reconfigured to work either as a translational or as a rotational robot by simply flipping upside down its moving platform.